Taking Care of Business

The Queen does it, the Pope does it and you do it, too.  But when it comes time to take care of business on the road, what are the options?  Can we be kind to ourselves as well as the environment?

Words by Sean Cummins

French philosopher Michel de Montaigne was renowned for breaking down the taboos around talking about ourselves and our bodies.  As long ago as the 16th century he was game enough to point out that “on the loftiest throne in the world we are still sitting only on our own rump.”  If Montaigne can do it, then I can, too – and that’s write about our rumps and the thrones we sit on. 

Specifically, it’s the thrones in the bush that I’m interested in. With rising fuel prices and the subsequent increase in the use of free camps without facilities, thrones in the bush is a topic vexing more and more RVers.

So what are the options available to us for going to the toilet whilst travelling?  What’s the most comfortable?  What’s the most environmentally friendly?  What’s easiest to use?  To clean up?

At home, with stuck with the same old system in the smallest room in the house. When we hit the road, though, we get to choose the driver of our ‘porcelain bus’.  Options fall into two broad categories; ‘leave it there’ or ‘take it with you.’  For the purposes of this discussion, I’ll assume you don’t have access to one of them fancy-pants ensuites in your van, or to public facilities.

In the ‘take it with you’ camp there’s really just the well known ‘porta-potty’ style of toilet.  This is a cartridge-based system which is comprised of two chambers stacked on top of one another.  The top chamber has a seat and a hole, and stores fresh water for flushing.  The bottom chamber collects and stores the waste.  Chemicals are added to the bottom chamber to break down the waste and eliminate odors.  When you are ready to go home, you unclip the two chambers for transportation, and then empty the waste into the nearest conventional flushing toilet. 

Porta-potty’s are popular, robust, long-lasting and easy to use.  They’re not too expensive, either, costing around $200.  Cleaning is straightforward as the chemicals that are added break everything down into a liquid.  They do, however, take up a bit of space, require fresh water and holding capacity is ultimately limited.  The chemicals used must be chosen carefully if you want them to be environmentally friendly, but it’s all going into the sewerage system in the end anyway.  Making a toxic mess slightly more or less toxic probably doesn’t matter a great deal.

In the ‘leave it there’ camp, there are a great many variations on a common theme.  The end result of any of these toilets is still going to be a hole full of pooh, but the ways and means of getting it there are only limited by your imagination!

The absolute simplest toilet is a hole you dig in the ground, then fill in with dirt when you’ve finished.  The first technological advancement you can introduce is a box of matches to burn any toilet paper.  This is a good idea, as toilet paper takes a surprisingly long time to decompose, whereas ash doesn’t.

The next upgrade you can make is to introduce a seat over your hole.  These can be anything from purpose built camp toilet seats retailing at around $20, to ingenious collapsible flat-packing thrones like a Jimmy’s Thunderbox (do they have a 21-Gun Salute option?), retailing at around $100.  Picture a galvanized chequerplate steel box with a fairly conventional-looking toilet seat on top.

People have gotten creative, too; for example, modifying old camp chairs with a hole cut into the seat, or building their own wooden contraptions to sit on.

Once you’ve chosen your seat, you can then accessorize. Plastic bags with the bottom cut out can be used as a liner to keep the seat interior clean.  Biodegradable bags are available that you can safely bury in your hole.  There are also gelling agents you can sprinkle over your business, which serve to gel any liquid, remove odors and speed decay.  These are apparently friendly to our environment, and you should be able to find them if you ask for pooh-powder (I recommend doing an internet search; there are fewer red faces and giggles involved).

For all you gardeners out there, you can treat your bush loo just like a compost heap.  Sawdust, finely shredded paper, dry leaves or straw – anything with a high carbon content – could be added as well to aid the decomposition process.  Topping off each visit with a layer of quality soil will also help contain odours and act as a composting catalyst.

A must have accessory for many in either the ‘take it with you’ or ‘leave it there’ camp will be a privacy screen.  Tent retailers offer ‘ensuites’ which can be used as a shower tent or change room, too.  Expect to pay around $80 for one from an established tent brand.

Chuck in a side-table, magazines, mood-music, flowers, incense sticks and some potpourri and you won’t want to leave.

When it comes to an environmental showdown between the ‘leave it there’ (LIT) and ‘take it with you’ (TIWY) camps, there are strong arguments in favor of both.  The TIWYs can lay claim to leaving nothing behind but footprints.  However, the waste still needs to be flushed when they get home, and our modern sewerage system is not exactly a model of environmental excellence.  Nonetheless, the TIWYs can allow themselves a moment of aloof superiority as they revel in the knowledge they have at least done no net harm to the environment.

The TIWYs will also need to clean their porta-potties when they get home, though; something the LITs won’t have to worry about.

You might argue that leaving it there is not very environmentally friendly.  Certainly, inconsiderate LITs can make life unpleasant for those campers who follow, as anyone who has discovered their sandpit has been used as a kitty litter can empathize. 

However, ponder the fact that for millions of years, mankind evolved to do what comes natural au naturale;  that is, Mother Nature expects, indeed prefers, that all her cuddly mammals do their business in the great outdoors on the ground.

We all know that urine is great for lemon trees; in fact, it’s great for any plant as a tonic boasting one of the highest percentages of nitrogen you can find.  Similarly, poop is a highly nutritious food source for plants that we are currently denying them.

Now, I’m not suggesting we forego toilets and instead steam up the ground around the lemon tree.  Human excrement requires a composting phase before it is rendered to be harmless and nutritious ‘humus’.  Humus is the same by-product of composting your garden scraps – a lovely dark, earthy soil.  Untreated, human waste can become very toxic, very quickly.

Hence, by taking care of business in a nice, deep hole, and adding gelling agents that will aid and speed the composting process, you are making a valuable contribution to the environment – you’re creating top-soil.  Consider the fact that billions of tons of topsoil are being lost each year due to mankind’s activities, and that
it takes up to 1000 years for one inch of topsoil to form under natural processes; it kind of makes doin’ it bear-style in the woods not just friendly to the environment, but a moral imperative.
                                                                                                                       
Whether you decide to be in either the TIWI or the LIT camp, there really is no right or wrong answer; you just need to decide what will be more convenient and comfortable to you personally.  As long as everybody out there is considerate, and they don’t tip their porta-potty waste out onto the ground, dig their holes in the middle of the camp-site, or leave non-degradable plastic bags in the bush, then there is no reason either method can’t be as comfortable or environmentally friendly as the other.